From toy cars to iPods: Childhood pastimes are a-changing
Marc Barlow loves playing with toy cars.
The three-year-old had a pink convertible he didn’t want to leave behind Monday afternoon in CMU’s Child Development and Learning Lab. At home, he plays with Legos and floor puzzles said his sister, Mount Pleasant senior Ashlii Barlow.
“They’re not all that different (from what I played with) because I played with a lot of them as a kid,” she said. “He’s starting to get into the technology. He likes to play with cameras and knows how to work an iPod.”
One of the advantages for Marc is that the toys keep him engaged, Barlow said, but he isn’t engaged with his environment.
Toys built around technology aren’t building the skills for children parents want them to build, said Margaret Desormes, CDLL associate director. Many parents have replaced time once spent in front of a television with time spent on a computer.
“They learn math by feeling things, not by touching a computer screen,” she said. “And with reading, you can picture the words ... If you cannot imagine them in your head, you aren’t going to read the words.”
One of the best things for building math skills is building with blocks, Desormes said. Seeing how they stack allows children to explore angles more than numbers they do not yet understand on a computer screen.
Katrina Rhymer, associate professor of psychology, lets her two children play with a computer at home, which Desormes said is fine in moderation.
“They’re already playing on laptops, they know how to use a mouse, as soon as we get home they want to play on the laptop,” she said. “The pro is that when they get on the internet they can do research.”
Even simple toys, such as clay, she said, are important for children’s development. They help kids develop the fine motor skills needed to hold a pencil later.
Desormes advocated incorporating as much potential for creativity as possible, from mixing paint to using fabric for dress-up clothes.
“In young children especially,” she said, “that pre-thinking piece is so important.”
Pushing children through the pre-thinking phase shows a focus on the wrong part of life, said Cheryl Priest, faculty director of the lab. It would be like teaching a 12-year-old how to drive so they are already prepared when they turn 16.
“We are so focused on preparing them for the next step, we skip that age,” she said. “I think it just re-enforces that we want them to be ready for (the next) grade.”
The best toys for kids are often the ones which are the least expensive, Priest said. Toys with multiple open endings allow children to continually play with them in new ways.
New toys, with lots of directions and only one use, do not allow them that freedom, she said. Her advice to parents was “throw away the directions before the child sees them” if they buy toys with instructions.
“Children have always used their pretend play to ... explain their world better,” Priest said.
